UK Sites

Administrators

By Skean Dhude

Although we all love planners, strategists and the doers the real power behind them is the administrators. Poor boring bean counters and box tickers who are looked at with pity.

Administrators do all the boring work we don’t like doing. They prepare and check the lists of items we need and the catalogue it so that we use it in the right order and that nothing is wasted. Administrators identify what is missing from the lists we prepared earlier and when they see that item on sale they make sure we buy it. They also make sure it is ticked off the list so we only buy what is necessary and no more. The work they do is boring to most of us and yet a true administrator revels in the minutiae of checking tick boxes and making new lists. Finding new items to catalogue will keep them busy for hours.

In our prepping we need to have this work looked after by someone who doesn’t see it as a chore and cuts corners. Not doing it correctly means that you cannot trust what is on the lists. So you may think you have an item when in fact you do not. This is not a good situation to be in when the shops may never open again. Almost as bad, from a financial viewpoint, is having too many of these items although you can always barter these away so it isn’t a disaster but the funds you accidentally spent on this unwanted item could have enabled a wanted item to be purchased.

Documentation, lists are a preppers friend. Stock control and inventory management are ways for us to manage our preps. Not doing it means we can never really know what we have and thus we cannot prioritise other items. You won’t know what to buy at the shops and you just default to what you buy on a general basis but items like salt, vinegar, flour and spices we don’t buy every week. One purchase a year may be all you do in these and if that is not when you are buying your stores you can forget.

Someone may like doing the admin work in your group. If not you need someone that doesn’t mind it and has the patience to spend the time necessary making lists and cataloguing your stores. At the very worse you need to allocate someone and share the role with someone to check what has been done. Administration is not for everyone but a good one makes it look so easy. If you have one make the most of them. They are worth two people that can start a fire with a bow drill. They will have a fine store of matches, flints and kindling just for the event if you have given them time to prepare.

Just make sure you have at least one in your group. You won’t regret it.

In my 24 years of local government experience I became cynical observing the Federal response to disasters. I am glad that I put my efforts into working within my local community rather than with the State or Feds. A national government bureaucracy is too cumbersome to provide prompt and effective response. If you look at the typhoon response in PI, everyone has been left on their own to service for the first week to ten days., Therein lies an important clue as to what everyone should use as their own planning standard.

In the US, organizations which seem to have their act together are the Critical Infrastructure Providers, the power and telecomm companies, local public works departments, water, fuel and energy companies and the grocery and food supply providers. The White House Framework is attempting to address critical infrastructure concerns without regulation. The National Institute of Science and Technology presumes regulation is required, but regulatory power already exists within the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Energy, and the various State Public Utility commissions. If America needs decisive action from Capital Hill for future crises we probably won’t get it in our lifetime…

At the State and local level constituents need to pressure elected officials to put sustainment of critical infrastructure before discretionary spending. Instead our elected officials use tax revenues for pet projects that will get them re-elected. What remains is a mere pittance to maintain the critical agencies of government (Fire, Police, Public Health, and the Critical Infrastructure needs of Information, Transportation, Communication and Utilities) to fight over what remains.

It is necessary to shift the emphasis of government away from “feel good” election promises. The effort to face reality must come from the local level and with luck migrate up to the State and Federal levels. The bottom line is that all governments at every level suffer from lack of due diligence. Perception is different from reality. Local activists with legal backgrounds should be filing malfeasance lawsuits against elected officials who repeatedly spend tax dollars on projects which serve only a small group of influential supporters at the expense of the mass public.

As far as IT security goes, most localities can operate quite effectively without it. We sure did pre-1980. Sure, it won’t be pretty but paper and pencil still works for the Public Safety response… Local governments haven’t adopted the advances that modern IT could provide them… you can’t take a cop or fireman and make him an IT specialist…
If you want to keep your local networks running you must pressure elected officials to allocate and actually spend the funds required. Industry knows how to secure their networks, but can’t get funding to do the job because elected officials would rather build in-door swimming pools and golf courses to get re-elected. There are plenty of examples of how nice to haves take money away from critical infrastructure projects and sustainment programs!

Most people today have cell phones and the major telecomm companies are prepared to bring significant infrastructure into a city where a major disruption has occurred. A good example in the US is the AT&T response team. They have response equipment pre-positioned at strategic locations around the country and a dedicated response team which drills regularly.

“Documentation, lists are a preppers friend. Stock control and inventory management are ways for us to manage our preps.”

Agreed but if you put any effort into doing your admin in a way that other people can benefit from IE producing kit or logistics lists whilst on the US forums they are grateful and often offer good additions to the documents on most British forums if you do the reasearch and write the article you just get slagged off by assholes.

I believe strongly in get research and planning, but its not worth sharing it with other Brits any more.

some people may have inventory they don’t wish to list! i’m not a list keeper but i have a great memory but if my level of preps grows enormous i may have to do an inventory , stuff is stored in specific locations relating to there use but thats about as organised as i get.